Robin laid an egg?

Jingle Bells, Batman smells.

I don't get it?

Like Pinocchio?

All of the other Reindeer used to laugh and call him names

like, Bill Murry!

Champs like us!

 "Champs like us, baby we were born to Mamdani!"

by Bruce Stringbean and the Lords of Flatbush

Deconstructing Classic Rock, again.

Is it true, what Jim Croce says about the South side of Chicago?

More Deconstructed Classic Rock

I wanna love you 'til the heavens start to rain. And I wanna love you 'til the stars fall on Alabama. 

Touch Me

by Phantom Jim & the Doors of Preception 

Don't Stop Believing

 "Just a small town girl

living in a lonely world.

She took the midnight train to Freebird."

A return to social criticism.

I've concluded, I missed my calling. 

I should be reviewing coffee and deconstructing classic rock songs.

"If there's a bustle in your hedgerow

don't be alarmed son,

your stairway lies in another brick in the wall."

Coffee reviews to follow.

Doing my part to preserve the history of preserved foods and beverages.

It turns out that you can't believe everything you read on t-shirts. Historian Bob Skilnik, and my Beers of the Day calendar, would like to inform us that Ben Franklin was a wine drinker. Those novelty t-shirts which claim that "Beer is proof that God loves us" are not, most likely, quoting ol' Ben correctly. According to Skilnik, this famous misquote could have been paraphrased from a letter written by Franklin in 1779;

"Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy"

Sounds to me like ol' Ben had been reading too much King James and the Greek Classics and not enough Hymn of Ninkasi. But, the Hymn of Ninkasi probably wasn't available for Mr. Franklin's reading pleasure.

Fanatical Recycling Social Networking Analysis

Our Research Dept had determined that Facebook is a bit lacking in the Social Networking dept.

Technical Difficulties...

I had that dream again.

I'm back in school and the school's been design by post modern architects intent on bringing the work of M. C. Escher to life. It is a minimalist pyramid with stairs that wrap around the outside of each level. I discover an escalator just when I start to become lost in these crowded pathways. Of course, in the confusion, I have to climb over the hand rail to gain access to the escalator.

The school has a student radio station which constantly broadcast discussion panels. I meet some old friends who are broadcasting their crowd sourcing campaign to reprint a favorite childhood book. I am not familiar with their favorite childhood book and don't get involved in their surreal commerce.

Flash forward and I'm sitting at a bar drinking beer from a can. (I'm sure this is dream symbolism for cheap beer.) I have an ink pen and am drawing an endless invisible circle on the bar, the cap is on the pen. The bartender becomes annoyed with my invisible circle and places my nearly full beer out of reach. I appeal to fellow costumers and other bartenders to retrieve my beer without success.

Next, I'm riding in a van with someone, perhaps it is a group of people? I'm telling the driver of my experience, drawing invisible circles, with the bartender. The navigator of the vehicle has little concern for my earlier experience at the bar and says, "I'll talk to you later," as we pull into his driveway. The implication being; "free beer."

Then the cat woke me up.

2012 Collegiate Football Preview, of sorts

As some of you know, I am an Alabama native. I consider myself very lucky that I do not fit the "mold" of what is considered the average Alabama resident. I still have many good friends who live in Bama and many friends who are Bama fans.Perhaps I'm a better southerner than Alabama native, as I have to rock the boat, or rebel and choose to cheer for the orange and blue of Auburn University.

One of my good friends, who still lives in Bama, recently posted this photo on facebook, thanks Pat. I had to steal it and share it with you all, it's too good!

As I live in Knoxville, Tn. now, home of the U.T. Volunteers, I must wonder what the predictions are for the Vols this year. Will the go 4 & 8 or 2 & 10? We'll see, Roll Eagle Vols!

April Twools!

That's two and fools combined, not an implication that this post is about tools. Although, it certainly could be and yes, I'm posting this photo all over the internet. (With similar comments.)

Cypress Mulch, that must be what the kids call it these days? With as much mileage as I'm getting out of this photo, I should give Kudos to the artist who painted these pallets of mulch in Lenior City.

Whatever happened to April Fool's?

Is April Fool's Day just an occasion for school boys? Do we out-grow the recognition of April Fool's Day as we become adults? There's no easy way to celebrate April Fool's, nothing simple like putting on a green shirt for St. Patrick's Day. Which brings up another point; they say that St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland which is obviously not the case. If St. Pat had driven all the snakes out of Ireland than James Joyce would have had a very different social landscape to memorialize.

I will add, it is no fun when April Fool's is on Sunday because any possible jokes and gags that might arrive at work are abandoned. Hopefully regular, foolish, postings will resume soon.

Climb to T-shrit Tuesday

During the late 90s one of my main forms of entertainment was going to see the band Widespread Panic. I managed to pick up a few t-shirts then too. The one on the right has lyrics from the song Climb to Safety. Notice J.B., Panic's front man, is wearing a baseball jersey in the image on the t-shirt. I can't recall which song the lyrics from the shirt on the left are from?


Here is the first t-shirt that Sally ever bought for me. Appropriately
it says, "Rock n Roll will never die."


That's 48 shirts displayed and 317 remaining.

Let's visit my old friend Jack Handey and his book Deeper Thoughts again;
"Weather they ever find life there or not, I think Jupiter should be considered and enemy planet."

I wonder what Jack thinks about Pluto defrocked status? Perhaps I can find his e-mail address and ask him.

Let's get ready for T-shirt Tuesday!

Here we have a shirt I bought this past winter. Blue Mountain Pizza is in Weaverville, N.C. where some of my in-laws live. I have only eaten there a few times but I love the place. Plus, it was Christmas time and I was in the spirit of giving, things to me and my money to others.


Here's another shirt I bought last fall. We live about fifteen miles from the Bass Pro Shop in Sevierville, Tn. and we finally went to the place last fall. My conclusion, they didn't have a thing that I couldn't find at Wal Mart. But, I don't hunt or fish so I probably missed a few exclusive items. I'll blend in with the natives with my Bass Pro Shop shirt.
45 shirts displayed, 320 theoretical shirts remaining.

So, I was wrong about Jack Handey . He's not Al Frankin at all, he's a real guy that helped Steve Martin write jokes. Steve introduced Handey to Lorin Michaels and the rest is television and publishing history. Jack's wife is actually named Marta too.

"I think a good gift for the President would be a chocolate revolver. And since he's so busy, you'd probably have to run up to him real quick and hand it to him."

I am afraid to comment on this one, due to the impending election and all.

More of what Santa brought me

Of course I got more shirts for Christmas and then bought one while at Myrtle Beach. I got the Justice League, Batman and Star Wars comic book shirts for Christmas and purchased the Tilted Kilt shirt in Myrtle Beach. These shirts, and the blogs, seem to make me an official middle aged fanboy. (almost middle aged) A fanboy of comics, sci-fi and beer.

These four make 42 shirts displayed with 323 remaining to reach the proposed target of 365. Not that I intend to own 365 shirts, I had only speculated that I own that many. Hopefully we will all know how many shirts I actually own by the end of this year.



How about some more obscure humor by Jack Handey from his book Deeper Thoughts, the sequel to Deep Thoughts. "It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money. And I guess that's what I like about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, waiting for that money."

I have long suspected that Jack Handey is a pen name for Al Frankin. I'm gonna research the theory right away.

The Rock n Roll shirts begin & more Deeper Thoughts

At least a small majority of my T-shirt collection are shirts for rock n roll bands. Two bands dominate this section, Widespread Panic and the Grateful Dead. I have a few Phish shirts too. Here’s one shirt for each of these bands to make the shirt count 38 with 327 shirts left to display.

Last week we had Melville, this week we have Jack Handey's take on D. H. Lawrence;

"Marta talks about sensuality, but I don't think she'd know sensuality if it bit her on the ass."

There are those contractions again and who is Marta anyway?

Beer shirt Tuesday & Deeper Thoughts

I have acquired three more T-shirts this summer and each is beer related. I got a shirt for the Knoxville area Humane Society which reads "Yappy Hour." This one is from Union Jacks where they were collecting $10.00 per shirt for the Humane Society. Then there is the "Break Fluid" shirt which came from Wal-Mart for $6.00. The shirt has an image of a tub of ice and bottles and cans of beer. Lastly, I found one of those "Life is full of important choices" shirts at the Goodwill Thrift Store for 98 cents. The important choices on this shirt are various beer brands on tap handles. This brings our count to 35 shirts presented and 330 shirts to go...


Also, I found the Jack Handey book. It is actually titled Deeper Thoughts and is the sequel to the book titled Deep Thoughts. Here's Jack's version of Moby Dick;

"I think a good novel would be where a bunch of men on a ship are looking for a whale. They look and look, but you know what? They never find him. And you know why they never find him? It doesn't say. The book leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide. -- Then, at the very end, there's a page that you can lick and it tastes like Kook-Aid."

Enough said.

Daily Affirmation; Who needs Jack Handey part 2

So, I’m driving home from work Monday and I pass a sign on I - 81 which indicates that the birthplace of Davey Crockett is located off the next exit. This of course brings the "born on a mnt. top in Tennessee" theme to mind and I think of how different the trees are now. I doubt ol' Davey would recognize every tree now. Mountain men like Crockett and D. Boone would probably try to make some Mohicans or twine something out of kudzu.

Of course, Boone N. C. is right over the Appalachian range from I -81 and I'm wondering if Boone and Crocket ever met and which one fought and/or died at the Alamo with Jim Bowie. Then I have to think of the Daniel Boone theme song and realize it qualifies as the worst composition ever with an opening line of "Daniel Boone was a man..."

I'm no Sam Clemens but what were the alternatives they had in mind when this line was composed? Daniel Boone was a woman, was a Canadian, was a Martian? Of course Daniel Boone was a man or you wouldn’t have been writing about him! He was a “man” from the pioneer period of U.S. History so we’re not gonna be writing any songs like;

“Daniele Boone was a woman, a might influential woman.
She could bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan
and sheriff Hamblin Co. all three!!”

I don't wanna get on a soap box about this "Theme Song," a product of Disney I believe, I just wanted to share this very random, odd and funny thought . I hope some of you got a laugh out of these ideas.

I will share more of Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts with you when I locate my copy of his book again.